Silent Words
by Prime627
Summary: Nighthawk leaves the Nemesis and takes a new identity as a femme called Silence. She is welcomed into a band of mechs she did not know existed. She fits in well, but the life she had on the Nemesis calls to her. Does she answer the call? /This is an experiment. I own Stinger, his crew, and Nighthawk and anyone else you don't recognize XD Enjoy
1. Chapter 1

Nighthawk ran away from the _Nemesis_, saying goodbye to her oldest friend, Knockout. She hid in the woods until her spark pulse settled. No one was chasing her. She had escaped with only Knockout and her knowing. She looked longingly at the giant warship she had called home and she whined for her daughter, Nightshade. But she knew she could not return to her baby and her "mate". She howled at the torn feeling, tears forming in her optics for the first time in a long time.

She flinched at the sound of branches breaking under pedes and she expected drones to emerge and take her back to the hovering warship, but she was greeted by an odd assortment of mechs. They murmured in surprise as she stood straight. She realised that most of her armor was gone, revealing her sensitive protoform. "My name is..." She paused, biting her lip. She could not use her Decepticon name anymore. She considered herself reborn. "My name is Silence."

The mechs parted, allowing a red and black mech to step forward. His glittering green optics found her purple ones and he grunted softly in surprise. He bowed his helm, chattering and chirping in a familiar language. It was Cybertronian, she realised. She had spent so much time on Earth speaking their language that she had nearly forgotten her own. She was relieved to find that she was not rusty at all.

"Greetings. I am called Silence," she said again in Cybertronian. The red mech nodded and dropped to his knee, provoking the same responce from his band.

"I am Stinger, and I am pleased to meet a femme in our...you would say, hour of need. Our last femme is old and cannot bear the tasks we have set on her. I hope you are strong and fit."

She narrowed his optics at his tone. It sounded like she had already been claimed for this unknown mech's cause, whatever that may be. "And if I refuse?"

"We leave you, and you will have to fend for yourself. Make the choice, dear femme, quickly. We must return to gathering."

She weighed her options, slowly nodding when she found she rather liked living. She, after all, had not lived in the forest. Not like these mechs, at least. "I shall, Stinger."

"Excellent. Follow us." And then they were gone.

It took a few tries before Nighthawk got the hang of bounding through the forest without crashing into a tree, which the mechs found amusing. Stinger chuckled and squated by her, asking if she wanted one of the mechs to carry her. She had shoved him every time, to the amusement to the other mechs. Stinger had shrugged and bounded off, leaving her to pick herself up.

Suddenly Stinger stopped, growling when Nighthawk plowed into his back. She bounced off and fell on her aft. "For a femme named Silence, you are very loud," he teased.

"I am out of my environment, Stinger," she snapped.

He shushed her, hissing as he pointed out a tiny crystal of Energon. Nighthawk was about to jump at it when she saw a familiar mech go to collect it. Stinger drew out a bow and cocked an arrow.

"NO!" She jumped in the way. The mechs gasped and Stinger bared his denta. "I mean, let me show my worth to you..." She bit her lip when Stinger nodded and lowered his servo-made weapons.

"Do not disappoint or we will feed on you instead."

She realised she was in the company of cannibals and she nodded slowly. She transformed into a massive hawk and flew over Silverwing, shrieking furiously. She buried her talons in his shoulder and pretended to bite his audio. Silverwing shrieked and ran off, not recognising her. She transformed back and watched him go, picking up the Energon crystal.

Then she found herself dangling from her pede, Stinger looking like he might pass out from laughing too hard. The last bits of her armor that had survived the helm-on crashes with trees fell off in gravity's digits.

"Yes. You will do simply for entertainment if you do not prove yourself to be a killer." Stinger cut her down and plastered her naked body in mud and leaves. "Welcome to our band."

She smiled and looked at the mechs as they rubbed against her and welcomed her. Stinger perched in a tree and stared down at her. She thought she saw possessiveness in his optics, but as soon as it appeared, it vanished and he grinned.

She followed him and his patrol back to their camp. Their only femme was cleaning what appeared to be a drone. It was gutted and flushed out entirely. Stinger shoved the femme away and licked up the Energon, taking a mouthful of wires and cables as he stood. He then walked to Nighthawk and moved so that the wires dripped fresh Energon onto her chest. "Eat," he mumbled.

She stared at him in surprise, then slowly took a cable and chewed it. She found out something that night as she swallowed and leaned in for another bite.

Cybertronians tasted pretty fragging good.

The mechs were doing the same: one of them holding a mouthful of cables while another selected its portion of the collected pieces. It was unusual, but Nighthawk was not about to question anything. She would not want to take the drone's place in the middle of camp.

Stinger prowled closer to the drone and barked, baring denta as the rest of the band crawled to him and submitted, screwing their faces into the dirt. Nighthawk knew she had seen this behavior before in one of Earth's creatures: subordinates submitting to a leader for affection and food. Mostly food. It seemed the prize in this submitting game was the drone's spark.

She joined in, pressing her chest and face into the ground as she whined pitifully. Stinger's optics were on her and he began to smirk at her. He growled at everyone else, then gave her a small nod. She moved closer, careful not to make optic-contact with Stinger. Her tank gurgled greedily at the scent of Energon and the promise of more of the delicious food she had given it. Stinger shoved the spark into her mouth and she retreated to eat it.

Stinger moved closer, grinning when she growled and hissed at him. She could not believe her behavior. How could she be so animalistic at the sight of fuel? "You will fit in well."

She licked her lips and slowly crawled back into the clearing, letting the mechs rub against her and she rubbed back.

We are wolves, she thought. She smiled up at them all and sat back as Stinger howled. A nearby pack of actual wolves howled back and the two species howled together. Nighthawk slowly joined in and the mechs broke off to listen to her. Even the wolves were silent until she finished.

Stinger watched her, purring. "Silence is your exterior. But inside, you are screaming for someone to listen."


	2. Chapter 2

Nighthawk ran through the forest, breathing in the sweet forest air. She had gotten thinner and faster since she had arrived in the cannibal clan. She had developed a taste for her own kind and she eventually began to crave it. She could hardly remember her life on the _Nemesis_, which she could not tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing. It was good because she no longer stayed up and cried for Megatron and her daughter, but now that she could hardly remember what either of them looked like, what stopped her from attacking them and eating them? She shuddered and the bush beside her rattled, disturbing a fawn and its mother. She watched the pair bound a safe distance away before the doe bent her head and smoothed the hair between the fawn's ears. The femme growled in jealousy.

"Pretty, are they not?" Stinger landed beside her, watching the doe bound off. "They are native and we admire them almost as much as the furbeasts."

_Furbeast _was their word for a wolf. Nighthawk nodded and sat by the stream, washing her face in the cool water. "Yes. I do see why you would admire them. They are fast and graceful."

He sat beside her with a _thump_, watching her. "They remind me of you." He tipped his helm at her, his denta flashing in a grin. "You have gotten better since we first met, Silence."

She nodded and laughed a bit herself. "Yes, well it comes from watching you and your band." She looked away from the cannibal leader, reminding herself once again that she ran away to keep her loved ones safe from her mistakes. If she continued making the same mistakes, she would keep running.

The Earth was only so big. How long would it be before she could no longer run any where except into the arms of the mech she left in the beginning: Silverwing.

She growled at the memory, forcing it down deep into her spark. Stinger was setting a trap nearby and paused to look at her. He knelt by her and sniffed at her face. She shot him a glare, which made him jump back and grin.

"I wondered if you were diseased. Obviously not." He went back to fuss over the snare, then he dusted his hands off and then touched a tree lightly.

She stood and hugged herself, walking slowly to his side. Her spark pulsed for him and she could hardly control herself. She let her helm rest on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and he held her against him. One look at the mech and Nighthawk knew she could be happy with no one else (like the way she felt about Silverwing and Megatron...). She brushed her lips over his and the mech flinched back as if she had bitten him.

He looked down at her in shock, touching his lips before he curiously leaned back to her. Obviously he had not received a kiss before and Nighthawk was happy to give him another and a more valuable gift.

Nighthawk woke up beside Stinger as they laid in the ferns. The band was watching them curiously, chattering and chirping among themselves. Apparently this was not a common sight: their leader collapsed in the ferns with a femme they had only known for a couple weeks or so. Nighthawk lost count of the days after the third sunrise.

Stinger opened an optic slowly, starting to grin up at the mechs. He jumped up and pounced on one of the other mechs, chasing them away from Nighthawk as he howled at the stars above them.

Nighthawk rolled over and sighed, closing her optics. Stinger scooped her up when he returned and laid her in his nest of moss and feathers he had collected. She pressed up against him and fell asleep once more.

The voice in her helm would not shut up that night.

_How could you be so stupid to give yourself to another mech? What if you have sparklings? What then? Why don't you ever think before you act?_

She shoved the voice down into a box and taped it shut, stowing it in the back of her processor. Stinger held her closer against him and he drifted off to sleep. Nighthawk expected this to be what she would see when she woke up: Stinger's chest. But Unicron or Primus or whoever was watching over her that night had a cruel sense of humor.

Nighthawk woke up to the screams and cries of her band. She jumped out of Stinger's limp arms and blinked up at a towering black mech with large wings.

"No mech survivors! Only femme prizes," he said as he grabbed her.

"Only these two, sir," one of them said, shoving Newt onto her belly. Newt was older than most of the mechs here and she was in charge of cleaning the drones her band caught. No one knew her real name. She just let Stinger affectionately call her Newt and the name stuck.

"Load them up!"

Nighthawk ran to Newt, chirping to her. The older femme looked up and whistled fondly, standing slowly as she let the mechs take her away. Nighthawk had never heard Newt speak before, but everyone seemed to understand her nonetheless.

"Take the young one to my quarters."

Nighthawk snapped her denta close to the mech's digits when he grabbed her face. The mechs around her "ooh"ed and laughed.

"Careful, Deathstrike. She bites."

"Excellent."

Life with Deathstrike was like being Megatron's pet. She was sore almost all the time and she dreaded going to her quarters for the night because the large mech was sure to be following her and would offer no mercy when she begged. He made her beg only for his amusement.

Megatron gave mercy.

She pressed her face into her pillow when Deathstrike was finished with her. He gave a grunt and got off her. The door shut and Nighthawk was alone with the mess. She sat up and looked down at herself. She had been thin, but now she was thinner. Unhealthy. She would surely die if she was not fed more than once every two weeks.

She stood, but the world began to spin and she collapsed on the floor. She laid there until Deathstrike came to her with Energon.

"Get up," he spat.

"I can't. I think I'm sick."

Deathstrike grabbed her and stared at her for a long time. "You aren't sick..."

She looked up at him, dreading the answer. "No..."

"You're carrying."


	3. Chapter 3

Nighthawk woke up to the sounds of the birds, her optics trying to focus on her surroundings. She sat up and watched the warship she had been forced to live on after her Stinger died fly off and leave her in the woods. She hugged her slightly round belly, hearing Newt's shrill cry. Newt had taken her place as Deathstrike's slave. She had been left on her own.

She buried her face in her servos and ignored the nudges of hungry sparklings. She just wanted to lay down in the leaves and remain that way as long as possible. She breathed in the scent of the leaves and was about to close her optics when she heard an aggitated voice that could only belong to her former second-in-command.

Starscream.

"You _fools_! Pick the Energon up and _carry it_ like you _mean it_!"

She walked to the source, hearing drones huff and hiss under the weight of a large amount of Energon, larger than Nighthawk had seen in a long time. Her tank rumbled irritabely and the sparklings nudged harder. She stepped into the clearing, hoping her belly was not yet obvious. Some drones dropped their load and stared at her for a long moment and for a minute, Nighthawk thought she looked glorious. Then she looked down at her whipped and beaten body and she came to the realization that they were surprised she was even alive.

Starscream walked to her, his optics wary. "What do you want?"

"I wish to speak with your master, underling."

He growled at her. "Why do you want to speak to him?"

"I'm going to join your miserable faction, of course. This is better than nothing. I'd join the Autobots, but they're too soft. You are as good as its going to get. Now comm your master and tell him you have a new recruit or I'll do it for you."

The Seeker hissed and stomped off, but he commed Megatron. The warlord did not take long to arrive and Nighthawk saw that he did not change much in her absense. She forced herself not to run into his arms and confess everything.

"What is your name, femme?" He sounded rougher than Nighthawk realized, but she could not believe that her running off could destroy a mech, especially if that mech was Megatron.

"Call me Silence," she said, and she bowed her helm. "I wish to join your faction."

"Once you are cleared by Knockout and you are healthy, you may stay. I will not allow you to stay if you are sick or infected. We cannot spare medical supplies for a femme that is of no use to us."

She nodded and was led onto the _Nemesis_. She was left alone to sit in the MedBay while she waited for Knockout, her oldest friend. When the shiny red medic saw her, his optics widened and he ran in.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were going to live in the forest and have a decent life. Why have you returned?"

"I ran into a little difficulty," she whispered and she touched her belly. "Long story short, I pulled a Nighthawk...again."

"You got pregnant from a mech outside the faction!?"

Nighthawk let Knockout check her out and she blinked back tears when he said they were too far along to be removed. They were split-spark twins, strong mechs, and promising fliers. Apparently that was the upside to this, she thought bitterly down at her belly.

"They're truly magnificent," Knockout purred as he held up the scan of her belly. "They are perfect in every way: perfect size, weight... They're not even fighting each other like twins and triplets do."

Nighthawk remembered her last trine of Seekers and she sighed softly. "Yeah..."

Knockout sat beside her and gave her a promising smile. "They'll be fine. Just keep them in your room when they're born or something. Megatron doesn't have to know if you don't want to tell him."

She nodded a bit, touching her belly as she frowned. "They can survive on their own if my body decides to abort them?"

"I wouldn't recommend to return to duties so soon..."

"I was," she lied. "I want to get back as soon as I can."

"I don't recommend it. I will tell Megatron that you are to be in your berth all times if you are awake before me."

Nighthawk nodded and sighed. "Very well," she whispered. "I'll stay in my berth."

She slammed into a wall, growling in pain as she felt her body contract. She threw herself at the wall again and hissed through clenched denta. She laid down and let the Energon trickle out from between her legs and she gave a satisfied shaky exhale. After several minutes of fidgetting and waiting, she did an operation. She _had_ to get the sparklings out. She could _not_ allow the sparklings to live and grow up. She was not going to make the same mistakes as last time.

It was bad enough Nightshade and Starsong were born and allowed to live.

She patched herself up and stared down at the sniffling sparklings. They held each other for warmth, one green and silver, the other purple and grey. Their wings flared out and trembled, perfectly formed unlike Starsong's crippled and broken wings. She laid in her berth and waited for the sparklings' bodies to shut down, but like Knockout had said, they were strong.

And Unicron had a nasty sense of humor.

"Ahh!" Dreadwing bit his own talons, staring up at his mother as she fed Skyquake Energon. The two never faught and never attacked each other, which annoyed Nighthawk more than if they had bitten each other every chance they got.

Skyquake pushed his mother's servo away and Nighthawk went to feed Dreadwing next. The purple Seeker drank less than Skyquake and pushed the bottle over to his brother. Nighthawk growled softly and dropped the bottle between them. They blinked up at her and tipped their helms the same way.

"Huh?" They both gave her a questioning look.

"Will you two just fight?" She pushed away from them and hugged herself. "Nightshade almost killed both her siblings and here you two are fighting to make sure the other gets more!"

The split-spark twins held each other and fell asleep, the bottle not even half-full. She picked up the bottle and stored it, sighing softly.

"You two are impossible," she said, shaking her helm. She watched Megatron's future favorite mechs sleep until she laid beside them and pulled them against her chest, keeping them safe for now.

_Dreadwing blinked up at his mother's face and touched her cheek, waking her up. He stared at her, his red optics blinking slowly as her own purple optics studied his face. He moved closer to her and let his helm rest above her spark. His mother sighed and pulled him closer and Dreadwing gathered his brother into his arms. The three stayed that way until his mother got up and bundled them into her blanket to sleep._

_ He blinked sleepily and buried his face into his brother's neck, falling back to sleep._

__**Skyquake woke up and began to mewl for his mother, Dreadwing joining in. They sat up, whimpering and crying for food as they held onto each other for comfort, but when the door opened, a tall skinny mech and long skinny talons found them and scooped them up. Skyquake stopped crying, scenting his mother on his armor and he saw her staring at them with sad optics. He held onto Dreadwing and trembled.**

** "When were you going to tell someone about these?"**

** "Never," she replied honestly. "They weren't supposed to be alive."**

** Dreadwing yawned up at the Seeker holding them and he reached for his mother, purring and cooing.**

** She jerked away.**

Nighthawk stared at Megatron as the warlord held the split-spark twin Seekers. "I did not mean to offend you, my lord."

"Because of you, your sons will be seperated. Skyquake will be a sentinel and Dreadwing will be an assassin."

Starscream jumped forward. "You can't seperate split-spark twins!"

"Oh? I'm sure I can."

Nighthawk lowered her helm and accepted Dreadwing, ignoring Skyquake's cries and Dreadwing's sad replies. She laid Dreadwing on her berth and watched the sparkling search for his brother.

"Don't you get it? You're being punished for my mistake. And by the time you two are grown, you'll still be punished. Punished for what I did."

Dreadwing cried up at her and raised his arms to be held. Nighthawk slowly lifted him up and cradled the sobbing sparkling.

"I miss him too..."

**Skyquake stared down at the floor, ignoring Megatron completely as the mech tried to feed him. He looked sadly up at him. "Dwead!"**

** "You cannot see your brother anymore," the mech hissed and pushed the bottle into the sparklings servos. "Now drink."**

** "No!"**

** Starscream watched the sparkling and bit his lip. "You shouldn't have seperated them. Now he will never cooperate."**

** "I just need him to grow up and then he'll be in stasis until I need him."**

** Skyquake crossed his arms and looked away, already a stubborn sparkling. He hid his face in his arms and growled at Megatron when he got closer. "Dwead!"**

** "I'll get you to be loyal to me, little sparkling, and when you are, you'll be happier and you won't even know you had a brother."**

** But Skyquake had Dreadwing memorized.**

** He was never going to forget.**

_Dreadwing strained to hear his brother, hugging a pillow that smelled like him. He buried his face in the fabric and conjured up an image of his brother laying beside him as they traced each other's armor seams. They were identical except for their colors. He felt the image slipping away._

_ But Dreadwing had Skyquake memorized._

_ He was never going to forget._


End file.
